Alternative processing strategies to reduce the weight loss of cooked chicken breast fillets subjected to vacuum cooling

In this paper, two processing strategies were evaluated aiming to reduce/compensate the weight loss of chicken breast fillets subjected to cooking and vacuum cooling: immersion cooking followed by pulsed immersed vacuum cooling (ICk-PIVC); and a new approach that incorporates a vacuum impregnation stage to the immersion cooking followed by vacuum cooling (ICk-VC-VI). Both strategies were compared to processes of cooking followed by vacuum cooling (ICk-VC), and cooking followed by cold-chamber cooling (ICk-CC). The ICk-PIVC led to smaller global weight loss and cooling time (22.9%, 61 min) as compared with the ICk-CC (25.3%, 82 min) and to a cooling weight loss 76% lower than that observed to ICk-VC at the cost of a cooling time 54% larger. In contrast, the ICk-VC-VI permitted to obtain products with global weight loss (25.4%) and mechanical properties that are similar to those of fillets subjected to ICk-CC, while avoiding the larger cooling times of the ICk-PIVC.